> Slightly off topic, but: phonetically, I think "unum" should actually
> be read
> out "uh-num", not "you num". Then again, this is a debate
Goodness yes, which of course makes your suggestion of marking the term as xml:lang="la" unreliable.
An intersting point, which will affect any technological solution, is the way we are writing down these phonemes.
While "you" and "num" are an English word and abbreviation respectively, and hence we can predict reasonably how they will be pronounced by any text-to-voice technology that expects English, this can only take us so far.
It wouldn't be a stretch to take "you num" and produce the same sounds as if your source was "jow noom".
I used ASCII-ised IPA in my example earlier (probably incorrectly, I'm no expert) but that of course introduces yet another thing for developers to learn - great for our CVs, but less great for development overheads.